Harpers Round Table December 8 1896 by Various

45 Pages·2021·0.34 MB·English

Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, December 8, 1896, by Various

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll
have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
this ebook.

Title: Harper's Round Table, December 8, 1896

Author: Various

Release Date: August 9, 2019 [EBook #60083]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S ROUND TABLE ***

Produced by Annie R. McGuire

THE BOY WRECKERS.
CHILDREN OF THE CONGO.
GOLD, AND ITS USES.
A STILTED COMBAT.
A LOYAL TRAITOR.
TYPICAL ENGLISH SCHOOLS.
FAMOUS CAVALRY CHARGES.
INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORTS.
BICYCLING.
THE CAMERA CLUB.
POLITICS IN THE LAND OF SHADES.
STAMPS.

HARPER'S ROUND TABLE

Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.

published weekly.
NEW YORK, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1896.
five cents a copy.

vol. xviii.—no. 893.
two dollars a year.

[Pg 129]

THE BOY WRECKERS.

BY W. O. STODDARD.

CHAPTER I.

THE THREE-CORNERED BOAT.

"It goes through the water like a wedge," said Pete. "Old Captain Kroom had it made for himself. That's why it's so
wide."
It was "so wide" only at the stern, and it narrowed to a blunt edge at the prow. All of its lines were pretty nearly straight.
Its bottom was as flat as a floor. At its forward end it was decked over for about two and a half feet. It was a bit of
deck that might serve for a seat, but in the middle of it was a round hole, and from this there stood up a straight stick
nine feet high.
"There's a pretty long boom for that mast," said Pete. "When the sail's on it's a kind of cat-boat. Old Kroom won't row
a stroke if he can help it."
"Well," said Sam, "I guess I wouldn't, either. But won't it tip over with a sail?"
"No, sirree," replied Pete, confidently. "It needn't ever tip over. Why, if you know how to sail a boat, you won't let
yourself be upset."
"Boys," roared a deep husky voice behind them, "what are you doing with my boat?"
They both whirled around instantly.
"We weren't touching it, Captain Kroom," said Pete. "I met him up in the village, and he wants to go fishing. He says his
name is Sam Williams. We've bought some clams and some sand-worms."
"Both of you get right in," commanded Captain Kroom. "I guess he's a city fellow. We'll show him some fishing. Pete,
put in that pail of live bait. They're prime minnows. Sam, take the sail and boom and lay them forward, ready for me.
Jump, now! the tide's turning. If we don't get right out across the bay we won't catch a bite."
"Sam," said Pete, as his companion seemed to hesitate, "pitch in. He knows fish."
The two boys were not so much unlike in their height and age, but there was hardly any other resemblance between
them. Sam had no need to tell anybody that he did not belong on that shore. He was too nobbily dressed, his dark hair
was too smooth, and his hands were too white. There was some healthy sunburn on his face, but it was nothing to the
tan on Pete's. Besides, Pete was red-headed, and had a full supply of freckles. What was more, his rig, from his straw

[Pg 130]

hat that turned up in front, down to his bare feet, was as unlike as could be to Sam's neatly fitting navy blue.
Nevertheless, they were a bright-looking pair, and Sam stepped ahead quickly enough, after his momentary flush of
rebellion at being "ordered around."
The fact was that old Captain Kroom was "bossy." It was his boat, to be sure, but he stood there and looked in all
directions, as if he owned the bay, if not also the sand-bar on the further side of it, and the Atlantic Ocean beyond that.
He was a very large man, and very heavy. The three-cornered boat hardly seemed to feel the weight of Pete and Sam
when they went into it with the bait and fishing-tackle and the other things. It rocked, of course, but it was steady
enough, as if it were accustomed to boys, and did not mind having them on board. When, however, Captain Kroom
finished his observations of the sea and the sky, and very deliberately put one foot into the boat at the stern, that end
began to go down.
"Hold hard, boys," he said; "I'm a-comin'. Steady, now."
His other foot came in, and he at once sat down upon the stern seat; but at the same moment Sam, at the prow, felt as if
he and the mast and sail were going up.
"Boys," said Captain Kroom, "I'm glad you're here. Keep well forrard, and it'll kind o' trim the boat. Pete, you and Sam
can 'tend to the sail. Cast her loose from the wharf. Give her her head."
"Sam," said Pete, "let the sail swing right out. You and I'll have to row till we get out of the creek."
"No, you won't—not with this breeze," growled the Captain. "Give me the ropes. We'll dance right along."
"He knows how to handle a boat, Sam," said Pete. "He can get out all there is in her."
Right at the shore of the mainland there was a kind of small shut-in harbor. It had a rickety old wharf, at which the boat
had been fastened. Other boats were there, hitched a little way out from the wharf. Some of them were pretty good
sized sailing-boats. Straight across the harbor, the patch of open water in front of the wharf, was a wide reach of
rushes, and among them wound the narrow crooked ribbon of water that Pete called "the creek." Outside were the
dancing waves of the bay, and there was bright sunshine everywhere.
If it was all a kind of every-day affair to Pete, it was not so to his friend, and Sam's eyes were glistening with
excitement. "Ain't I glad I met you!" seemed to almost burst from him; but Pete's reply was uttered in a very matter-of-
fact tone.
"You'd better be glad that Captain Kroom came. We wanted a boat, too, but it's the best kind of luck to have a man
that knows fish. I've known lots of fellows like you come out here to fish, and that didn't catch a thing."
"Up with her!" shouted the Captain, and in a moment the sail was full.
In spite of the two boys forward, the boat was inclined to lift its nose, but away it went slipping into the creek, and
making swift headway along the crooks and turns among the rushes.
The steering and the management of the sail were all in the hands of the old fisherman. It almost seemed as if the wind
must be, too. There was enough of that, and the boat went this way, that way, so far as Sam could see, with very little
regard to the direction the breeze came from. He said so to Pete.
"Guess so," replied the 'longshore boy. "He knows his boat. So long as a wind isn't dead ahead, he doesn't care. But he
hates oars. So do I."
There the oars lay, along the sides of the boat, two of them; but an oar stands for work, and Sam was quite willing to let
the sail work for him. He was now sitting forward of the middle of the boat, looking ahead, but every now and then he
glanced back at Mr. Kroom. He looked all the bigger and heavier for being in a boat and because he weighed it down.
It occurred to Sam that it probably would not tip over so easily with so much human ballast to steady it.
"Queerest kind of beard," he said to himself. "His mustaches are awful."
Not that the beard was so very long, but it was stiff-haired and curling, and it stuck out on all sides. Below his chin it
came down in a great gray bunch. That and his gray mustache and his jutting eyebrows and the deep wrinkles across his
forehead gave him a fierce look. It grew worse every time he gave an order. His hands, too, were large, hairy, and
looked as if they had been stained like old mahogany. It was not by any means a shallow boat, and it was not short, but
it was not exactly like anything else that Sam was familiar with, and he said so to Pete.
"Of course it isn't," said Pete. "He'll go out to sea in it, where nobody else'd dare to. But he knows the sea. He's been
everywhere."
"Out, boys! We're out o' the creek!" shouted Captain Kroom, as if it excited him to get clear of the rushes. "Hurrah!
Troll, both of you! Get out your lines! I won't fish; I'll sail. Quick!"
Sam felt as if something in Kroom's voice took hold of him and set him going, it was so tremendously bossy.
"He's a captain," thought Sam. "He's been a ship-captain, and he's used to ordering sailors. Guess they jumped."
That was what Pete had done, for he had the basket of tackle on his side of the boat. She was dashing along now, right
out into the bay, and she rode the waves capitally. The sail swung away out and the boat leaned over, but for all Sam
could see, the stern with Captain Kroom in it sat almost square on the water. No boat bends in the middle, but it had
that look.

"She's going!" exclaimed Pete. "Tell you what, Sam, the Elephant can outsail some of the fastest boats along shore.
She's a ripper!"
"Out with your lines!" growled the Captain of the Elephant. "You won't catch anything, but I like to see the lines out.
No bluefish in the bay, unless they came in last night."
Sam evidently felt very much as Captain Kroom did about having the trolling-lines out, but Pete seemed entirely willing
to let his city acquaintance have the first line that was ready. Both of them had already said enough to let Captain
Kroom know that Sam's city relatives were boarding at a sea-side hotel a mile or so up the coast, and that he had
visited the village that morning for the first time. There he had met Pete, and they had agreed to go fishing together.
"Humph!" said Captain Kroom. "I always had to pick my crews anyhow I could. Made sailors of 'em, though, after we
got afloat."
The boys heard him, but Pete was making no haste with his line. He remarked to Sam,
"If he says there are no bluefish, then there ain't any. He knows."
"None yesterday," came hoarsely from the stern of the boat. "What do you know about fish? Did you ever catch a
whale?"
"Never trolled for one," said Pete. "Guess you didn't, either."
They must have been old acquaintances, but Sam looked astonished to hear Pete answer so tremendous a man in that
free way.
"Didn't I?" grumbled thunderously out of the deep chest of Captain Kroom. "Well, I did, then. Struck him, too, and
made him tow my schooner further than across this bay. What do you think of that?"
"What did you do with him?" exclaimed Sam. "Did he get away?"
"No, sir, he didn't get away," replied the Captain. "But he sounded, and that's where the whale-line went."
"Sounded?" gasped Sam. "I didn't know a whale could holler."
"Holler?" put in Pete, with some contempt in his voice for the ignorance of a city fellow. "He means the whale dove to
the bottom."
"Don't know about the bottom," went on the Captain. "But he pulled out a mile of line, and when he came up the
harpoon was in him yet. We got him."
"Oh!" said Sam. "You trolled for him with a harpoon. Oh! Hullo! I've got a bite. Oh!"
His hook was a pretty big one, set firmly in a bone that Pete called a "squid," and this had been glimmering over the
waves astern while Pete was getting his own line unsnarled.
"Hold hard!" shouted the Captain, as Sam tugged and strained.
"I can't," said Sam, as the line was jerked from his hand and began to run out swiftly over the side of the boat. "He's
getting away!"
"Lost him!" almost groaned Pete. "He pulled like a shark."
"More like a stick of timber," very quietly but gruffly remarked the Captain. "I'll tack and see what it is."
He was swinging the boat around while he spoke, but the moment he had done so he reached out and grasped the line
which had been so suddenly jerked away from Sam. It was running loosely now.
"Haul it in, boys," he shouted. "We'll see what's at the other end of it."
"Biggest kind of fish!" said Sam. "It hurt my hands."
"Fish?" said the Captain. "Don't you know a fish-bite from a snag? You will when you've catched more of 'em."
Nevertheless the boat could not go directly back upon its former trail, and the line the boys were pulling in grew taut
again. As soon as it straightened, the Captain once more touched it, and his fingers told him something, for he remarked:
"It's kind o' loose, too. There are lots of stuff floatin' 'round this bay. It might be wreckage."
Sam was hardly enough of a seaman to get a clear idea from that, and he stood up to watch. He was a pretty good-
looking young fellow, with bright dark eyes, and with, just now, a very enthusiastic, highly colored face.
"I knew we'd have some kind of luck if we sailed with Captain Kroom," said Pete.
"Here we are!" shouted the Captain, and down dropped the sail as he added: "Take the oars, Pete! Sam's catched a
cod-lamper-eel."
Pete sprang to the oars with the activity of a monkey, and they were instantly in the rowlocks.
"I'll bring her around," he said; but Sam was leaning over the side of the boat to get a glimpse of his "eel."
"Humph! Canvas! Old sail! Bit of spar!" growled the Captain. "I'll cut Sam's squid loose. Sam, hand me that boat-
hook."
It lay on the bottom, and hardly was it in the Captain's hand before the three-cornered Elephant began to lean over

[Pg 131]

with his weight.
"'Twon't do," he said. "Fetch her starn around. This 'ere's a find. Boys, there's been a wreck somewhere. It's a jib-
topsail. That's a spritsail-yard."
"He knows," said Pete; but Sam was in the dark as to how one piece of half-sunken canvas could be distinguished from
another.
"Steady, Pete! Pull!" commanded the Captain. "I'll get a good look at it. It's worth towin' in; but we'll make this tide
carry it as far as it will. Pretty good bit of duck."
Sam saw no kind of water-fowl, but in an instant more he remembered something, and said, "Cotton duck."
"English duck," said the Captain. "Pretty near new. And there's something down there hitched to the spar. We don't
need any fish to-day, boys. I'll gear this fast to the boat, and then I'll gropple 'round."
He had spare rope enough in his three-cornered boat to make a hitch with, and the Elephant was quickly anchored to
the all but sunken prize. While he was doing that, however, and while Pete worked the oars, Sam had not been idle. He
had a very clear idea that whatever this might be, he had caught it. Of course it belonged to them all, like any other fish,
but it had bitten upon his hook. Now that he had that back again, he was disposed for more catching, but not one of his
motions had escaped the keen eyes of the Captain.
"That's it," he said to Sam, after making a fruitless sweep through the water with his boat-hook. "You can gropple, too,
but put on a sinker, or it won't go down. Heaviest chunk of lead there is in my basket."
It was plain that he liked the quick and handy way with which Sam followed his directions, for he said:
"I've known a young lubber like you, green as grass, turn out to be a right good foremast hand. Tie it tight and swing it
out. That's it. Let it go down. There! Pull!"
"I've struck something!" said Sam, breathlessly; but even as he did so he was thinking.
Wrecks? He had heard all sort of things concerning wrecks. What if a sunken ship should be away down there? The
Captain said this was a topsail. He must know. Then there were lower sails. There were masts. Every ship had a hull.
What about drowned people? What if he were about to pull up somebody that had been drowned?
It made a kind of cold chill run all over him, but he tugged upon his line, and something at the end of it slowly yielded
and came nearer. Meantime the Captain plied his long-handled boat-hook, and now he suddenly exclaimed:
"I've hitched on a hawser! Here she comes! Look out for the boat, Pete."
"Guess I'd better," said Pete, for the Elephant was tipping around in a most disorderly way, and the water was a trifle
rough with waves.
"Only a rope," thought Sam, as the Captain's catch came in sight, but the old sailor's eyes twinkled, and he said to
himself,
"There's something at the other end of it."
"Sam!" exclaimed Pete. "You've struck a bundle! Haul it in!"
"Can't," said Sam. "I guess it's fastened to the rope the Captain hooked."
"No, bub, it's hitched to the spar," said the Captain. "Cut it loose, and in with it."
Sam pulled out his pocket-knife, but his fingers trembled so that he hardly could open it. Then he reached over and
began to cut away, but before the bit of rope that held the bundle was severed the Captain shouted:
"Wreck it is! Got another catch! It's a valise. There comes the spar, all afloat. Hullo! That's too bad. Somehow I
unhitched that sail. It's gone to the bottom."
It was just so. The water-soaked canvas had been buoyed only by the wood, and as soon as that was cut away it went
down out of sight.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

[Pg 132]

SISTER OF CHARITY AND SOME OF HER

PUPILS.

CHILDREN OF THE CONGO

BY CYRUS C. ADAMS.

The schools for black boys and girls in the Congo country have a very unusual feature that perhaps is not found in any
other part of the world. Some of these schools are exclusively for boys, and the others for girls, and the intention is,
when they grow up, to have them marry one another, thus creating civilized families, who will help to improve the
people around them. Probably the young men and women will not think this is a hardship, for it is believed they will
prefer to choose their wives or husbands from among those who have had some education, like themselves; and if they
do not, they will undoubtedly have the privilege of choosing where they please. Whether this plan is wise or not, it
shows at least that the white race is beginning to think a good deal about the black children in Africa; in fact, these
coming men and women are expected to help far more than their barbarous fathers and mothers of to-day to civilize
Africa.

If we were to visit Belgium this summer we should find many
little black girls from the Congo in the convents there learning
to read and write, sew and cook, and to do many other useful
things. When they go back to their homes it is expected that
they will wear the garb of the Sisters of Charity, and teach
their people as the devoted white Sisters have been doing
since 1892; and if they do well, they will ultimately take the
place of those pale-faced women from Europe, who suffer
from the trying climate. Thus far one-fourth of all the girls in
the chief Congo Catholic school, the brightest among them,
have been sent to Belgium for years of training.
All through the French Congo we see the government officials
keeping a sharp lookout for the more promising sons of native
chiefs; for some day these boys will become the most
influential natives in the country, and so the French are
gathering many of them into schools near their homes, and are
sending others to France to be educated. Of course they will
not all turn out exactly as the French hope they will.
Some years ago an African chief was killed in battle with the
French forces. One of his sons was sent to France. No black
boy there makes better progress in his studies, but visitors
shake their heads when they hear his answer to the question
what he hopes to do in the world.

"I hope to live long enough," he sometimes says, "to avenge the death of my father."
He will probably change his mind, and, at any rate, France will give him no opportunity to make her any trouble.
Professor Drummond, after his visit to Africa, said he would like to get inside an African for an afternoon, and see how
he looked at different things. Wouldn't we like to know just how these boys and girls feel, and what they think, when
they are suddenly landed, fresh from the depths of a savage land, in the streets of Paris, Brussels, or Berlin, and see
more things in a day they never heard of than we do in a year? They learn many things, as a baby does, by stern
experience. When Von François brought an eight-year-old boy from inner Africa to the sea, the youngster chased along
the beach in high glee, and before any one could stop him, tried to refresh himself with a big swallow of ocean water.
This same boy, Pitti, thought the snow he saw falling in Berlin was a swarm of butterflies. The first horse he saw terrified
him, and the Berlin newspapers told of his unbounded astonishment at the strange dishes and viands on his master's
table. What a marvellous change in the condition of these children! Many of them were slaves, and some of them had
been brutally treated and even wounded by cruel slave-dealers. To-day they have good homes, and the world is doing
all it can to make them intelligent and honorable men and women.

There are "street arabs," or homeless boys, in the Congo villages, just as there are in New York city. They live on what
they can pick up, and it sharpens their wits to have to hustle for a living. It would take a smart Yankee boy to beat
some of these Congo youngsters in a trade. Even a five-year-old will sometimes amass a little capital. Somehow he will
get hold of a string of beads. He may trade it for a small chicken, which thrives under his nurturing care, and in a few
months he can sell the fowl for four strings of beads, quadrupling his capital. Pretty soon he is able to buy a pig, which
follows him like a dog, and sleeps in his hut; and when piggy grows up his owner gets a good price for him in the
market.
I think you have never heard of Mr. Stanley's purchase of eighteen little black boys for three cents apiece. He told me
the story once, and as I have never seen it in any of his books, I will tell it here. On the upper Congo he met a slave
gang that was likely to die of starvation, for little food was to be had. His offer to the Arabs of a cotton handkerchief for
each of the little boys in the party was accepted. The handkerchiefs had cost the explorer just three cents apiece, and it
is doubtful if slaves were ever purchased so cheaply before. The explorer tucked his boys away in corners of his little
steam-boat, and as he went down the Congo he distributed them among the stations he had built along the river-banks,
and there the boys were taught to read and work. He took one of them to England, where the lad soon learned to
speak English, and Mr. Stanley was surprised to find how much the boy could tell him about the language, customs, and
legends of the people he came from, far up the Aruwimi River.
Young folks in Africa act a great deal as other boys and girls would do under similar circumstances. If we were
unfortunates who were surely dying of hunger in a wilderness, perhaps we should be as glad as these boys were to be
sold for three cents apiece, if the change meant plenty to eat and a kind master; and, if, free children as you are, you
were mistaken for slaves, I doubt if you could be more deeply grieved than some untutored black children have been by
such a blunder. On the lower Niger lives Sanabu, daughter of a chief. Awhile ago, when the girl was fourteen years old,
she was permitted to accompany the French explorer Mizon, because she knew several native dialects, besides a little
English and French, and was useful as an interpreter. One day a Portuguese asked Mizon how much he had paid for his
little slave, and offered to buy her. Angry tears came to the child's eyes; but she brushed them away, as she drew
herself up with the air of a little princess, and said: "I am no slave. I'm as free as you are. No one shall ever sell me."
Sanabu was taken to France, and all the French people know the story of her life, and of her wanderings for a year as
the interpreter of an explorer.
Sanabu is not the only little girl who has gone with an explorer as interpreter. In 1888 Mr. Paul Crampel brought to
France the little daughter of a chief. The explorer did not want the child, but he found that the old African would be
seriously offended if he did not accept the unique present. "Go with the white man," said the stern old father, as he led
the trembling Niarinze to Crampel. "You have no longer a father or mother. You are going to the white man's country."
Crampel's young wife welcomed the little girl in Paris, where she was to learn to read and live out her days. But another
fate was in store for the bright young creature. The time came when France sent Crampel back to Africa on a very
difficult mission. He needed an interpreter among the widely spread Pahuin tribe, who are believed to number a million
people. Niarinze was one of these people, and it was decided that she should go back with the explorer as his
interpreter. A great crowd on the wharf saw them waving their handkerchiefs as the steamer bore them away, and that
was the last that their friends in France ever saw of them. A few months later they were in an unknown country north of
the Congo, and there Crampel was stabbed to death by treacherous men. The brave girl, rushing to his aid, seized a gun
and shot dead one of the men who were murdering her white friend. She was knocked down and disarmed, and we do
not know whether she ever rose again. Some of the fugitives said she was killed on the spot; but there was a later
report that she was led away a slave, far north toward the Sahara Desert.
Do not some of these incidents show good qualities in these far-away African boys and girls that should attract in their
behalf the sympathy and interest of more fortunate children in other lands? What boy could do more to show love for
his mother than the little ten-year-old on the upper Congo whose thrilling story was told by Captain Coquilhat?
One day a woman of the great Bangala tribe was crossing the Congo in a canoe with her little boy. Kneeling in the
dugout, she leaned over the side as she bent to her paddle. Suddenly a huge crocodile came to the surface, closed his
jaws upon the mother's arm, and pulled her out of the canoe. The one thought in the boy's mind, a thought that
triumphed over his terror, was that he must save his mother if he could. The paddle drifted near, and he picked it up. He
could see by the swell of the water ahead where the crocodile was swimming with his prey, just below the surface. He
started in pursuit, wielding the paddle with all his might.
The animal easily gained on the canoe, and finally, far in advance, he pulled his victim out of the water upon the shore of
an island. Then he plunged into the river again and swam away, perhaps to find his mate and share his prize with her.
The boy paddled straight for the spot where his poor mother lay. As he gained the shore he knew that she was either
dead or senseless. He leaned over her, and saw her terrible wounds. He was not strong enough to carry her in his arms,
but he could draw her to the water's edge and pull and lift until the poor body was in the canoe. With what frantic
energy he worked! And he had need; for before he could push off and point his boat homeward, he saw the crocodile
up the river, and coming nearer every moment.
When the crocodile had reached the shore, the canoe was well out in the river. If the animal had not stopped to crawl
out on the land and look around for his victim, the boy's devotion would probably have cost him his life. As it was, the
crocodile had nearly overtaken the canoe, when the boy's cries brought the villagers to the shore, and the shouts and
missiles frightened the angry pursuer away. The poor mother was dead, but her little son, who had risked his life to save
her, had at least the satisfaction of knowing that her body would not be the food of crocodiles.

[Pg 133]

WITH WHAT FRANTIC ENERGY THE BOY WORKED!

"Don't you fire guns in your country
when a baby is born?" asked a
Congo native of a missionary, who
had rushed in great alarm when he
heard a volley fired.
"Come back," shouted the natives
to him. "It's only a baby born, and
everybody is glad."
That white man was glad too it was
only a baby. Many an African child,
more unfortunate than most of
them, has been glad to be
befriended by the white men who
are living in their country. Here is
one among many stories illustrating
this.
One day, in Central Africa, Mr.
Arnot found several girls in a slave
caravan, nearly dead from the
hardships they had suffered. He
bought them for a few yards of
cloth, and took them home. One of
them, little Mwepo, was very bright
and happy, and was the favorite in
the household.
Mr. Arnot went one day to dine
with King Msidi. A little girl came into the yard where they were sitting and threw herself at the King's feet. When he
bade her tell her troubles, she said she was a slave whom the King's soldiers had taken from her home. She said her
mistress treated her so cruelly that she had run away to beg the King's protection. Arnot was about to leave, and the sly
old King told the girl to follow him if she wanted a good home. So Arnot took her hand and led her to his cottage,
where Mwepo and the little stranger flew into each other's arms, weeping as though their hearts would break. Three
years before they had been playing on the banks of the Luba River when slave-stealers suddenly tore them from their
homes and parents; but after many months of suffering they had been reunited in the home of a white man.

GOLD, AND ITS USES.

If the average reader or thinker will devote a few minutes to the subject of gold and its uses, and how much of it
annually disappears by wear, leaving no possible trace, he will find himself involved in some extremely interesting
calculations. If some genius would only invent a power strong enough to attract to it the millions of invisible particles that
have, and are constantly being worn off the various articles composed of that metal, what an immense amount would be
recovered!
Where do these particles go? Here, there, everywhere: in your house, on the streets, in the banks, business houses,
stores, and wherever man goes. As an instance of this the following is cited: There is at present a veritable gold-mine
being worked in an old watch-case factory in Brooklyn. It occurred to the new purchasers of this property that during
the long years of manufacturing of gold watch-cases that took place there, a large quantity of gold particles must have
been absorbed by the flooring, walls, furnace chimney, etc. So they went carefully to work and tore the old building
down bit by bit, and burnt and crushed the material, afterwards assaying the ashes. So far something like $50,000 has
been recovered. Say an ounce of this lost gold were recovered. If we melted it down and gilded a fine silver wire, it
would extend more than thirteen hundred miles; or if nineteen ounces were recovered (which in the form of a cube
would be about one inch and a quarter square), it would gild a wire long enough to compass the whole earth like a
hoop.
If you pick up a gold-leaf, such as is used for gilding purposes, it becomes a curiosity in your eyes when you realize that
seventy-five square inches of it weigh only one grain. Now the thousandth part of a line, or inch, is easily visible through
a common pocket-glass. Hence it follows that when gold is reduced to the thinness of gold-leaf 1/50700000 of a grain
of gold may be distinguished by the eye. But it is claimed that 1/1400000000 of a grain of gold may be rendered visible.
Large quantities of gold are used in gilding portions of exteriors of public and private buildings. For instance, if we take
the Church of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg, we find that it required the use of two hundred and forty-seven pounds of
gold to gild its five crosses. They can be seen glittering at a distance of twenty-seven miles.

[Pg 134]

A STILTED COMBAT.

BY G. B. BURGIN,

Author of "Gascoigne's Ghost," etc.

I.

Peele sat on the platform, surrounded by a group of youthful sympathizers. "The fact is," he said, the light of battle in his
eye, "I'll either have Gough's gore, or he mine. Matters have come to a crisis."
At the other end of the school-room "Grinny" Gough made an exactly similar speech. From time to time these youthful
Montagues and Capulets glanced ruefully at a blackboard containing the following pregnant information:

Composition to be written by every boy in the school, instead of customary half-holiday.

SUBJECT:

Landes.—A maritime department in the southwest of France, on the coast of the Bay of Biscay. It derives
its name from the landes, or marshy heaths, which occupy a considerable portion of its surface. The capital
of the department is Mont-de-Marsan, and its area 3599 square miles. The population in 1893 was
35,143.
Impositions must be handed in to Mr. Squinnige at evening preparation.

Peele glanced ruefully at the blackboard. His look of disgust gradually gave way to a broad grin of delight. Gough (he
was pressing a metal inkpot against a black eye) intercepted the grin, and looked more rueful still.
"It seems to me," said Peele, again addressing his followers, "we're going to have a jolly row."
"And all because of a few potatoes," said the Tadpole.
"And a girl," added Bates.
"Girls always do let a man in for rows," observed a youthful pessimist.
Peele checked his followers with a lordly wave of his hand. "I thought I was in Ireland," he said, "I saw so many
potatoes flying about, and heard Squinnige say, 'Gentlemen, gentlemen, you forget yourselves as gentlemen.'"
"He never forgets himself—especially at meals," said the Tadpole. "I don't know how the row began. When I saw the
other fellows chucking taters I chucked too. I bagged Squinnige first shot; then he got under the table and yowled."
"I began it myself," Peele admitted. "When I saw Polyhymnia [Miss Wantage's real name was Polly, but Peele preferred
"Polyhymnia" as being more sonorous] giving that beast Gough two potatoes instead of one, I didn't mean to say a
word; but he pitched one into the fireplace, and I couldn't help shying mine at his head. He shied back, and hit
Squinnige, and then you fellows all chipped in."
From which it will be gathered that the young gentlemen of Hutton Park Academy were in a state of open rebellion.
There were several causes to account for this; but the chief among them was the rivalry which existed between Peele
and "Grinny" Gough with regard to Polyhymnia, who was sixteen to their fourteen.
Dr. Wantage had a theory that to teach boys to be gentlemen they should be subjected at an early age to the refining
influence of feminine society.
He was a widower. The only feminine society, therefore, that he could provide for the young gentlemen under his
charge was that of Polyhymnia, who entered into his plans with the greatest gusto, and announced that she was perfectly
willing to sacrifice herself for the good of the school. Had the Doctor been a suspicious man, he would have wondered
at this alacrity, but a work on Greek particles absorbed most of his time, and he noticed nothing. Polyhymnia had only
been home about a fortnight from school, and was already beginning to find time hang heavily on her hands. She hailed
the Doctor's scheme with delight, and made her first public entrance at the boys' dinner, and sat at the head of the table
in order to distribute the potatoes.
Peele, who was the first boy to enter the room, made her a lordly bow. "Grinny" Gough came second, put one foot into
a hole in the mat, and tumbled heavily at his divinity's feet. The rest of the rank and file made an awkward entrance over
"Grinny" Gough's prostrate body, whilst Peele conversed with Polyhymnia, and regarded his rival with lofty contempt.
Polyhymnia declined to carve for the forty young gentlemen, but devoted herself to the distribution of potatoes, boiled in
their skins—the potatoes' skins, not the young gentlemen's. On the first day of her doing so each boy was about to
devour his potato, when the Tadpole noticed that Peele gracefully removed his from his plate, wrapped it up in his
handkerchief, bowed to Polyhymnia, and put it in his pocket—his breast pocket. Polyhymnia blushed; this was true
worship. Her blushes were succeeded by others when the whole of Peele's faction proceeded to follow their chief's
example, each boy enfolding the precious potato in a more or less dirty pocket-handkerchief. But after about three
days' persistent accumulation of potatoes, Nature asserted itself, and Peele's followers felt that it was rather ridiculous

[Pg 135]

to carry about a pound and a half of uneaten vegetables in their pockets. On the fourth day, Gough, with a vigorous
sneer at Peele, had, as Peele explained, ostentatiously pitched his extra potato into the fireplace. The next instant he
received the point of a particularly hard-skinned potato in his left eye. Two moments later the battle became general,
Peele standing in front of Polyhymnia, and shielding her from flying missiles with heroic devotion. Then Squinnige, the
usher, came out from under the table, and the result was the suppression of the customary half-holiday, and an absurd
"imposition" to be done about the Landes.
"Never heard of the blessed places," said the Tadpole, with a rueful glance at the blackboard. "What are they,
anyway?"
"Oh, it's easy enough," said Peele. "You fellows needn't trouble about it. It's where every one goes about on stilts. Now
just settle down and do your 'impo,' or Squinnige'll be at us again. He's a victim to duty, is Squinnige, and I want to
make things easy for him."
At this moment Gough, surrounded by his faction, approached the platform.
"Come down, and I'll lick your head off," he said to Peele.
Peele, who was an admirable boxer for his age, regarded Gough with particular contempt.
"Squinnige would be at us before I'd blackened the other eye," he said to Gough. "Name your weapons. We'll fight this
thing out like gentlemen."
Gough was staggered. If he did not assert himself his ascendency was gone forever.
"I'd like to punch your head," he said; "but, as you say, when gentlemen fight about a woman they don't do it with fists.
Swords and pistols are common. I'd like something worse."
Gough's followers crowded to the support of their chief with a thrill of delight.
"I call this prime," said the Guinea-Pig. "Prime!" he repeated, smacking his lips.
Peele waved his hand with lofty condescension.
"As you please," he said, glancing idly at the blackboard. Then a thought struck him which did credit to his love of the
dramatic.
"What do you say to stilts?" he asked.
"Stilts!" said Gough, in amazement. "You might as well talk of 80-ton guns."
"Not at all," said Peele. "Quite customary in France. Much deadlier than pistols."
"But how d'you do it?" asked the crestfallen Gough.
Peele shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, stand on one stilt and hit with the other," he said. "Gentlemen generally leave details to their seconds."
"That's all very well," said Gough. "I didn't come over to England with a Norman pig-driver, and ain't used to those
things; but we can't make fools of ourselves in the middle of the playground. If you can hit on a way of working it
without making asses of ourselves I'm game."
"All right," said Peele, loftily; "I'll work it out. The Tadpole acts for me. I suppose the Guinea-Pig will do the same for
you?"
"Yes," said Gough, sulkily, creeping away to his end of the school-room.
Peele's followers gathered round him again and began to worship.
"Of course it's all guff," said the Tadpole. "Nothing but a stork could fight on one leg."
Peele again waved his hand.
"Can each of you fellows rake up a shilling?"
It being Saturday, the amount required was speedily subscribed, and handed over with unquestioning faith to Peele.
"What are you going to do with it?" asked the Tadpole.
Peele sat down and hastily drew a pair of stilts. "I'll take this to the village," he said, "and get Smith to make us forty
pairs. Then I'll show you fellows how to use them. It's often struck me we could play 'footer' in this way and get a lot of
fun out of it. Now, Tadpole, go and explain to the enemy."
When the plan was explained to the enemy, the enemy immediately acquiesced in it. About a week later Dr. Wantage
was surprised to see his pupils mounted on stilts and tumbling about in every direction. When he came to the Tadpole,
who sat on the ground, ruefully rubbing the back of his head, the Doctor sternly ordered that big-headed youth to rise.
"What's the meaning of this tomfoolery, Wilkinson?" (the Tadpole's name was Wilkinson) he demanded.
The Tadpole looked imploringly round at Peele, who at that moment appeared on stilts which covered about six feet at
a stride.
"It's this way, sir," Peele explained to the Doctor, as he leaped to the ground. "Mr. Squinnige gave us an 'impo' on the

Landes last Saturday, where the people do everything on stilts. We got so interested in it, we're going to play a football
match on stilts when we've had a little practice."
The Doctor looked round and saw half of his pupils reclining in various involuntary attitudes on the ground, whilst ten or
twelve others put their stilts against the wall and tried in vain to get on them.
"Oh, very well, Peele," he said; "don't let your zeal carry you too far. It will be awkward if half of you are laid up with
broken arms and legs." And the Doctor continued his way to a neighboring wood, there to meditate on particles.
Polyhymnia could not understand this sudden craze for stilts. She pressed Peele for an explanation.
"I'm sure you're at the bottom of it," said Polyhymnia, with emphasis. "You are the worst boy I ever knew—and the
handsomest," she added, weakly.
"If you look in your glass," said Peele, "I think you'll find I'm not at the bottom of it all. I wish you wouldn't speak to that
beast Gough."
"Gough is full of good points," said Polyhymnia, angrily.
"So are a lot of other beasts," retorted Peele, more than ever decided that the combat should be waged to the death.
A bogus match was played under the Doctor's nose one afternoon, in which Peele's followers got decidedly the worst
of it. Gough, emboldened by triumph, proposed that Peele and himself should settle their differences in Homeric combat
then and there.
"I fight," retorted Peele, "when there is no chance of interruption."
This remark made the matter irrevocable, and the combat was fixed to take place on the following Saturday afternoon,
when it was known that the Doctor would be away.
On the appointed afternoon all the boys in the school were drawn up into two armies mounted on stilts.
Peele and Gough stalked into the middle of the playground, attended by the Tadpole and the Guinea-Pig respectively,
and ceremoniously bowed to each other, although the feat was difficult.
Now that everything had gone so far, the Tadpole began to funk it. "Hadn't you better let him off?" he said,
apprehensively, to Peele.
"Say another word," threatened Peele, "and I'll begin on you."

THEN THE FIGHT COMMENCED.

Then the fight commenced.
The Tadpole and the Guinea-Pig had drawn up a code regulating the manner of the combat.
The combatants were not allowed to push against each other, but might strike with one stilt, or thrust. Whenever one
fell, it counted to his opponent.
The two began shuffling warily round each other, like wrestlers waiting for an opening. By a dexterous thrust of the right

[Pg 136]

stilt Gough succeeded in bringing Peele to the ground, amid derisive shouts from his followers. Peele's face was badly
scratched by the gravel, but he was on his stilts again in a second.
In the next round he fought more warily, and balancing himself on one foot, delivered a swashing blow at Gough's
shoulder-blade. He was about to follow it up as Gough wavered, but the Guinea-Pig came behind him, and, utterly
regardless of the laws of the duello, struck Peele a crushing blow on the back of the head with his stilt.
Peele fell to the ground for the second time. There was a cry of horror, as Polyhymnia, who had not accompanied her
father, rushed up and supported his head on her lap; whilst Gough stood moodily looking on at his rival, and the
abashed Guinea-Pig bolted, amid a shower of stilts flung at him by the enraged boys.
"You coward!" screamed Polyhymnia to Gough. "Oh, you base, cowardly wretch; you daren't fight him yourself, so you
got some one else to attack him from behind. I'll never speak to you again."
Gough was too proud to exculpate himself at the expense of his injudicious follower. Peele at last opened his eyes. "It
wasn't his fault," he said, magnanimous to the last; "don't let on to the Doctor," and fainted.

Peele remained a month in the sick-room. The first day he was able to come down into the matron's parlor he found
Gough there, gloomily waiting for him.
"I've come," the latter explained, "to let you know I wasn't cad enough to plan hitting you from behind."
Peele looked at him curiously.
"I never thought you were," he said.
"The Doctor fancies it was an accident," moodily continued Gough; "and he's ordered all the stilts to be burned. Since
then I've been thinking things over." He hesitated. "We could finish this affair in the holidays, on the sands at Boulogne.
Perhaps pistols would be better; stilts are too uncertain," he added, darkly. "You shall have first shot to make up for
this."
Polyhymnia entered the room.
"Shake hands," she commanded, "or I'll never speak to either of you again. Besides, if you don't, I'll tell the Doctor all
about it."
Dogged to the last, the foes reluctantly shook hands, and Gough left the room. Polyhymnia remained, looking at Peele
rather doubtfully.
She came a step or two nearer, but he did not glance at her.
"Philip!" she said. "Aren't you beginning rather early?"
Peele looked up.
Polyhymnia put out her hand, and insisted on his shaking hands with her.
"I've not given Gough a single potato since you were ill," she said; "and I never, never will, as long as I live."
Peele began to feel better.

A LOYAL TRAITOR.

A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.

BY JAMES BARNES.

CHAPTER VII.

HARDSHIPS.

Now behold the third attempt that I have made to condense this part of my narrative.
In desperation, for I wish to push on, I have adopted the measure of giving but an outline of my personal history
covering two years.
So I jump to a day in June, after I had been living in the little house on Mountain Brook some seven months.
During this time I had been to Miller's Falls but once with my uncle, but so insolently was I stared at that I did not care
to withstand again the ordeal of pointed fingers and the whispered conversations of the curious. But now on this June
day, here I was standing at the edge of the pasture waiting for some one most impatiently.

[Pg 137]

From the door-step of Belair but one other dwelling was in sight; except this, nothing but ranges of hill-tops. But a mile
below lived a farmer named Tanner, who managed by hard labor to gain his living from the ground. But I was not
waiting for him, nor for my uncle, nor for Gaston, who, by-the-way, had been constituted, or had appointed himself, my
guardian to such an extent that I might at times, with no stretching of the imagination, consider myself a prisoner. No, I
was not waiting for any of them, but for some one who soon hove in sight across the slope of the opposite hill. It was a
little girl of my own age, and the only living being at that time who knew anything of my thoughts or life; and they were
both strange enough for a boy of fifteen to possess or to endure.
Perhaps if I should tell of our conversation on this day it might recount something that would show how things were with
me. In our meeting there was nothing but the friendship of two lads, to put the case as it really appeared to be, and
when she had climbed up on the top rail of the fence beside me, and hooked the hollows of her feet behind the bar to
keep her balance, the way I was doing, we began, as children do, to speak without preliminaries of any kind in the way
of greetings.
"Why weren't you here this morning?" she said, as if accusing me.
"He had one of his fits on and kept me at work," I replied. "First I had to practise with the small sword for two hours. If
I don't look out he will run me through some day. I almost wish he would."
"I heard you shooting," said the girl.
"Yes, he wouldn't let me off until I had placed three pistol balls inside a horseshoe nailed to the side of the barn; but I'd
rather do that than go through the fencing."
"Down in the village and at our house every one says you're all crack-brained up here," the girl said, making a grasp in
the air at a yellow butterfly that flittered over her head. "What else did you do?"
I was ashamed to say that I had been at my dancing-lesson, so I said: "I had to translate four odes of Horace and learn
all about a lot of stupid people named De Brissac. I'm glad they had their heads cut off."
"Why did that happen to them?" asked the girl. "What did they cut their heads off for?"
"Because they were nobles and offended the French Republicans by being polite and well dressed and clean, my uncle
says."
"Tell me all about it."
I had had the history of the great French revolution, at least one side of it, drilled into me ever since my advent at
Mountain Brook. I had learned that my uncle had escaped to America from France, where he had fought for the King,
and that my mother and her twin sister had also managed to get away from the frightful prison of La Conciergerie with
their lives, but that my grandfather, two uncles, and an aunt by marriage had all lost their heads by the guillotine for the
sole reason that they were rich, very well dressed, and very polite indeed, so far as I could make out.
I had learned by heart the family histories of any number of the great noble families of France, and all of this I
considered most dull work indeed, and wasted time. However, the story that I related to Mary Tanner, as we sat on the
top rail of the fence, seemed to interest her greatly.
"You see," I was saying, after I had finished spinning the long yarn, "my name is not John Hurdiss at all; it is something
else."
"What is it?" asked the girl.
"I have no idea," I replied; "but my uncle always calls me Jean, which means John, and, to be honest, I don't think he
kn...